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A sweeping cultural survey reminiscent of Barzun's From Dawn to Decadence . "At irregular times and in scattered settings, human beings have achieved great things. Human Accomplishment is about those great things, falling in the domains known as the arts and sciences, and the people who did them.' So begins Charles Murray's unique account of human excellence, from the age of Homer to our own time. Employing techniques that historians have developed over the last century but that have rarely been applied to books written for the general public, Murray compiles inventories of the people who have been essential to the stories of literature, music, art, philosophy, and the sciences—a total of 4,002 men and women from around the world, ranked according to their eminence. The heart of Human Accomplishment is a series of enthralling descriptive chapters: on the giants in the arts and what sets them apart from the merely great; on the differences between great achievement in the arts and in the sciences; on the meta-inventions, 14 crucial leaps in human capacity to create great art and science; and on the patterns and trajectories of accomplishment across time and geography. Straightforwardly and undogmatically, Charles Murray takes on some controversial questions. Why has accomplishment been so concentrated in Europe? Among men? Since 1400? He presents evidence that the rate of great accomplishment has been declining in the last century, asks what it means, and offers a rich framework for thinking about the conditions under which the human spirit has expressed itself most gloriously. Eye-opening and humbling, Human Accomplishment is a fascinating work that describes what humans at their best can achieve, provides tools for exploring its wellsprings, and celebrates the continuing common quest of humans everywhere to discover truths, create beauty, and apprehend the good.

Acknowledgments v
A Note on Presentation ix
Introduction xi
PART ONE
A Sense of Accomplishment 1
1. A Sense of Time 3
2. A Sense of Mystery 13
3. A Sense of Place 25
4. A Sense of Wonder 53
PART TWO
Identifying the People and Events That Matter 57
5. Excellence and Its Identification 59
6. The Lotka Curve 87
7. The People Who Matter I: Significant Figures 107
8. The People Who Matter II:The Giants 119
9. The Events That Matter I: Significant Events 155
10. The Events That Matter II: Meta-Inventions 209
PART THREE
Patterns and Trajectories 245
11. Coming to Terms with the Role of Modern Europe 247
12. . . . and of Dead White Males 265
13. Concentrations of European and American Accomplishment 295
14. Taking Population into Account:The Accomplishment Rate 309
15. Explanations I: Peace and Prosperity 331
16. Explanations II: Models, Elite Cities, and Freedom of Action 353
PART FOUR
On the Origins and Decline of Accomplishment 383
18. The Aristotelian Principle 385
19. Sources of Energy: Purpose and Autonomy 391
20. Sources of Content:The Organizing Structure
and Transcendental Goods 409
21. Is Accomplishment Declining? 427
22. Summation 449
APPENDICES 459
1. Statistics for People Who Are Sure They Can’t Learn Statistics 461
2. Construction of the Inventories and the Eminence Index 475
3. Inventory Sources 491
4. Geographic and Population Data 505
5. The Roster of the Significant Figures 513
Notes 589
Bibliography 625
Index 639
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